The clarity of vision and refreshing unpretentiousness of Timberlake Wertenbaker's "Our Country's Good" makes it by far the most inspiring and enjoyable historical account of Australia's fledgling days yet staged in this country.

Ironically and fittingly, the play was written, directed and performed by Britons, premiering at London's Royal Court Theater last September. Adapted from (Australian) Thomas Keneally's novel "The Playmaker," its subject is the true story of the events leading to the first theatrical production staged in the penal colony of Sydney, in 1789. That production was George Farquhar's "The Recruiting Officer," and the Royal Court's idea was to stage the old play and the new play in repertory.

On the 200th anniversary of that first production, both Sydney and Melbourne audiences have the chance to see "Our Country's Good" and "The Recruiting Officer" in the same fashion. The Melbourne Theater Co. is staging both with local casts, while Sydney is playing host to the Royal Court's own production, under the direction of Max Stafford-Clark.

"Our Country's Good" is absorbing theater. Despite the barrage of historical plays offered here last year for the Bicentennial, the new perspective from Wertenbaker, Stafford-Clark and cast makes for a very modern and appealing drama. The Royal Court cast's playing of convicts and officers is authentic and convincing. After all, the story is not about Australians, but displaced Britons.

Nor is the story simply about the cruelty, sweat and toil that built this country, although whips, chains and the hangman's noose are intrinsic to the scenario. Broadly, the play is about the triumph of the human spirit against the force of oppression, and the metaphor for that is theater itself, offered as educative, restorative and ultimately cathartic.

In a place where, as Kenneally wrote, "to be a person under sentence was the normal thing and to be a free man abnormal," it is not only the convicts  lowlives who begin with no more dignity than caged animals  who achieve humanization through the staging of a play. Many of the King's officers become touched and awakened by the spirits of those they have tried to subordinate.

Wertenbaker draws her characters vividly, with humor and compassion, and the cast, most doubling roles, fervently bring them to life. Stafford-Clark directs the ensemble adroitly and all are outstanding, but particularly notable are Nick Dunning in the dual roles of captain and the convict Sideway, who went on to establish Australia's first theater company; Ron Cook as the liberal-thinking governor of the colony and thoughtful convict writer, and Kathryn Hunter, whose disfigured, greatly pained convict woman under the threat of hanging is poignantly conceived.

It's a double treat to have the Royal Court in town, and with such stimulating theater. A production of "Our Country's Good" is planned for Los Angeles in September, with a Yank cast. There's no doubt American audiences will feel similarly affected by this uplifting and charming "backstage comedy."  Krug.